In His Sunniest Hour
by Ash10
Summary: A disagreement between Saunders and Hanley drives a wedge between the onetime friends. Will the loss of Saunders cause Hanley to rethink his decision?


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In His Sunniest Hour

Being born in the Bronx and raised there until past his 17th birthday saddled Chip Saunders with an accent he was never able to shake. It also had the unfortunate tendency to give people the wrong impression of the young man. He was no urban illiterate, but intelligent, sensitive and well-read. His intelligence was common knowledge to anyone who knew him even remotely. It served him well in his latest profession – buck sergeant in the United States Army currently serving in the European Theater of Operations, specifically France, winter 1944.

Sensitivity did not serve him as well as intelligence and he had been chewed out, thoroughly, by his lieutenant only that evening for siding with one of his men, Private Kirby, against a lieutenant from Baker Company.

Saunders had been respectful enough, but respectfully adamant. He wouldn't give an inch. Kirby might be a goof-off, perpetual, but never light-fingered as Lieutenant Hawthorne had intimated.

Saunders had held himself under rigid control, light complexion going brick red to the roots of his blond hair, while Hanley gave him what for – in front of Hawthorne. He'd held it all in, offering a perfectly executed salute before turning a tight 180 degrees and exiting the tent Lieutenant Hanley used as a temporary base of command.

Cold wind buffeted him, threatening to steal his breath, picking up the bit of falling snow and throwing it back into his face with stinging force. Saunders turned up his jacket collar, and favored the lighted tent behind him with a final backward glance.

He was angry, but it was more than anger. He was disappointed and hurt. He and Gil Hanley had been buddies once, good-natured sparring partners, a lifetime ago in England, before Omaha, before the lieutenant had gotten a field commission that had driven a wedge between them. Still…Hanley should've trusted enough to back him.

The squad wasn't on call so Saunders, head down, hands jammed deep into jacket pockets, made the tent he shared with them his destination.

Ducking low, he pushed the flap aside. The friendly bantering of the men ceased, abruptly, and Saunders felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

Kirby spoke first, the expression on his thin face accusatory, his nearly black eyes hard, unnaturally so. There was no trace of the usually good-natured G.I.

"Swensen was here. He was passin' by the lieutenant's tent. Said he heard Hanley chewin' you out…." Kirby swallowed hard. He, too, felt betrayed and hurt at what he'd been told, at what he believed to be the truth. "Swensen…he said you never stuck up for me, Sarge! Never said a thing…just let Hanley and Hawthorne bury me. Why, Sarge?"

"Yeah, what's goin' on, Sarge? You know Kirby would never do what Hawthorne said. Why didn't you…" Why? Why?" A chorus of voices overlapped and ran together. Saunders heard none of the words. What he did hear was his men's lack of confidence…in him. They should've had enough faith to know better…enough to never believe a gossip like Swensen with his unreliable and never-ending source of bullshit.

Saunders closed his eyes against the disappointment, pivoted and vanished back out to be enveloped by darkness and swirling snow dust.

He turned away from the camaraderie the lights in the deepening twilight offered and into the absolute solitude of the woods. The silent beckoning darkness matched his melancholy mood and Saunders lost himself in thought – memories of other times, other places, better and worse. Thompson slung across his shoulder, hands again stuffed into jacket pockets, Saunders walked. His steady pace ate up the miles; time something to be lost track of.

The numbing cold overtook him in slow increments. He recited poetry, softly, to himself, here where there was no chance of being overheard, of being chided for his sensibilities. He recited Poe, not the sad later poems, but some of the work written while the poet still retained the ability, the reason, like Saunders, to forget and lose himself in better times.

"I have been happy, though in a dream.

I have been happy – and I love the theme:

Dreams! In their vivid coloring of life

As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife

Of semblance with reality which brings

To the delirious eye, more lovely things

Of Paradise and Love – and all my own!-

Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known."

Saunders nodded at the truth of the words, stopping to lean against the rough bark of a tree and gaze languidly up into the newly clear sky.

Fumbling with stiff fingers in an inside shirt pocket he withdrew his Zippo, meaning to use its flame to check his watch for the time. The lighter dropped from nerveless fingers into the thick powder of snow somewhere out of sight near Saunders' feet.

"Damn!" he cursed, feeling around for the keepsake, a gift from his brother, Joey, before Chip had left for North Africa and Joe had gone into basic at Camp Le Jeune.

After long minutes and no results, Saunders cursed again, vigorously, under his breath, a bad night following on the heels of a worse day. A rotten exhausting patrol in the frigid cold had cost him a good soldier; then his confrontation with the lieutenant and the squad.

"That caps it! That just caps it all!"

The snap of a broken twig sounding like the crack of a rifle shot had Saunders down; the Thompson gripped in both hands. Another snap and the sergeant sidestepped to the left thinking to fade back into better cover. Instead, his boot found empty air and he fell over a sharp drop-off, hitting the bottom 20 feet down with a bone-jarring crunch, rolling further down a decline, finally coming to rest against a rock outcropping.

For a few minutes there was a cushion of painless shock as Saunders fought for breath. Then came the black realization that he was in a world of hurt.

He lay on his belly, face turned to the side, left arm pinned beneath him, the right outstretched. The pain centered mostly in his left shoulder though his head hurt as well. Blood pooled beneath him, melting what snow his body had not, staining a wide area bright crimson in the full moon light.

With his good arm he attempted to push himself up, crying out at the hot wicked pain that robbed his strength and sent him back to the ground. Several tries exhausted him and left the sergeant whimpering into the pain and cold. Soon the cold became the overwhelming factor, blocking even the agony of the shoulder.

XXXX

"Where's Saunders?" Hanley's voice jolted the men out of sleep. It wasn't the lieutenant's usual voice, which, in itself was often enough to make them either jump to or cringe; this was different all right – it was sharp with worry.

Kirby, Caje, Littlejohn, Doc and Billy were instantly awake, pawing sleep out of their eyes with clumsy fingers, glancing over to Saunders' usual spot. His bedroll remained neatly tied, both blankets folded on top.

Caje and Kirby exchanged bewildered looks while Caje answered the officer who glowered impatiently down at the group from his impressive height.

"We…uh…we don't know, sir. We thought maybe he was with you or gettin' some chow when he didn't show by 2200."

The men began talking at once as each offered what he believed to be an explanation for Saunders' absence or questioned the man next to him as to what he believed was going on.

"Knock it off!" Hanley silenced them with an impatient wave of a gloved hand.

"It's now 0200. Saunders is not in this camp. I know. I have searched it. If he's not here with you then he's out there somewhere."

Even in the close confines of the tent Hanley could see the plumes of his breath. If Saunders was out there and for whatever reason hadn't returned, his prospects for survival were less than promising.

"Volunteers only to search for him. If you want to go …saddle up. Bring extra blankets."

In no more time than it took Hanley to finish his three sentence explanation, the men, all of them, were on their feet, silent now, pulling on boots, getting their gear together, nodding at Hanley as they stepped past and out into the night.

It wasn't difficult for Caje to pick up Saunders' boot prints after they separated from the others at the outskirts of the small encampment. The trail was meandering and long. After an hour it was Kirby who broke the silence, whispering to Doc in a string of breathless sentences.

"I musta hurt his feelings pretty bad before…in the tent. I jumped on 'im hard, Doc, without knowin' what really happened."

Kirby searched his jacket for a cigarette, found one and lit it. The flame from the lighter illuminated his drawn face, reflecting the misery in the dark eyes.

Doc sighed and hitched his medic's knapsack up to a more comfortable position on his shoulder.

"It wasn't just you, Kirby. It was all of us. Shoulda kept our mouths shut till we heard the truth from the sarge."

"Goin' off half cocked never got anybody…." The rest of Kirby's mumbled sentence was lost to the wind as he hurried to catch up with Caje and the lieutenant stopped ahead. Doc shrugged and picked up his pace, Littlejohn and Billy behind him doing likewise.

Caje's strong-boned face was tightly drawn and considerably paler than usual as he peered over the edge of the drop-off and then turned to the officer. There was no need for him to say what Hanley could see for himself.

Before the rest of the squad could move up, Hanley and Caje were already scrambling down a relatively transversable spot close to the drop. But Doc, standing on high ground, squinting down, could see the body as the two men reached it, Hanley kneeling, a hand already on Saunders' shoulder.

"Don't touch him! Wait for me! Don't move him!" Doc warned as he began his own descent, Kirby, Littlejohn and Billy on his heels, slipping and sliding their way down.

Doc knelt as Hanley made space for him at Saunders' side. He pulled off his gloves and slid a hand beneath the sergeant's field jacket, resting it against his back. He felt shallow, slow respirations, assuring the men crouched around him, "he's alive."

Gently, Doc ran his hands down Saunders' spine and across his ribs checking for serious, obvious damage. He could tell by the crooked way the sergeant's shoulder rested on the ground that it was dislocated. The moon was bright, but to check the head injury the medic asked Kirby to get him the pen light from his bag.

With Hanley's help, Doc managed to roll Saunders over. Using the small flash, he panned it into both the non-com's eyes. Reaction seemed sluggish, but the pupils were equal. The injury to the head was probably a relatively minor scalp wound though blood loss was significant. And the sergeant had lost so much body heat he could no longer shiver in the dense cold to keep warm as the rest of the men were doing.

Orders were given and obeyed. A fire was built while Doc prepared to realign the sergeant's arm with his shoulder.

Vaguely Saunders sensed the activity going on around him. He couldn't yet feel the heat of the fire Littlejohn and Billy had started or the warmth from Hanley's body as he held Saunders in the crook of his arms while Doc swathed him in wool blankets from head to foot.

He did, however, feel the quick agony when the medic put his arm back into the socket it had been wrenched from. That he felt, before the morphine he'd been given had a chance to work. Blessedly, he passed out.

Dawn was already sending creeping rays of new light across the horizon before Saunders regained his senses. Doc knelt at a side pressing a mess cup to his lips. The rising steam was fragrant and Saunders wanted the hot coffee badly enough to risk inching a hand out from beneath the blankets to grasp the container and hold it close.

"Good. That's it, Sarge," Doc encouraged as the non-com sipped the coffee, its sugared warmth fanning out to envelope a body now wracked with chills.

Finished, Saunders let his hand drop back against his chest, while the medic passed the cup back to Caje crouched behind him; he tucked Saunders' hand beneath the blankets.

"You on patrol?" Saunders questioned the men whose faces pressed close around him, plastered with varying degrees of relieved smiles.

"Nah, Sarge," Kirby piped up. "We came out to get you! It was the lieutenant, he…." Kirby's explanation was cut short by Hanley, still at Saunders' back, supporting him.

"That's enough, Private. I can speak for myself." And the lieutenant went on to explain the situation as he'd seen it and the steps he'd initiated to locate Saunders.

The sergeant nodded thoughtfully, sighing. "Stupid of me to come out so far…wandering off like a green kid and you, putting your lives at risk comin' out here…that wasn't too smart either, Lieutenant."

Hanley allowed himself a brief smile Saunders was unable to see, but could hear in the officer's voice. "Since you're chewing out your lieutenant, _Sergeant_, you might as well do it right and go all the way. Yesterday…I was wrong. I should've stuck up for you against Hawthorne, you and Kirby. I knew you were right – had to be. I've never known you to be so damned stubborn about something you weren't absolutely sure of. I was wrong…so go ahead, Saunders, finish chewing me out. It's the last chance you'll get without risking a court martial."

Saunders slowly shook his head. "No, sir. You did what you thought best at the time. I can't fault you for that, and you admitted you were wrong. That takes guts."

A violent bout of teeth rattling shivers cut short Saunders' words. Kirby held out a cigarette. Saunders nodded and accepted the Marlboro between his lips. Caje leaned forward, flipped open a Zippo and lit the smoke. He palmed the lighter, showing it to the sergeant. Sun glinted off the bit of engraving on the side – a few words in Latin and a date.

Disentangling his hand from the blankets, Saunders reached out to accept the coveted lighter from the Cajun. "Thanks," he whispered, the heartfelt word directed at Caje, but meant for them all. "Thanks."

XXXX

Saunders woke, consciousness returning sluggishly as he fought against the lassitude just to open his eyes. It was full daylight and the sun was blinding against the white snowy expanse. He squeezed his eyes shut against the harsh glare and when he decided to open them again, there was a presence blocking most of the light.

But what the hell was going on? He was still cold, a muscle-stiffening, bone-chilling cold. The only mercy in it being it numbed the pain of the dislocated shoulder.

Where were Hanley, Doc, Caje, the rest of the squad? Where were the fire and the hot coffee and the offer of comfort and protection? Gone? Or never there in the first place? Squinting up at the figure looming over him, concentrating hard to make it out, Saunders came to a bitter conclusion – never there in the first place.

Barely, just barely, the sergeant discerned the outline of the figure before him – a soldier in a German uniform, his Mauser pointed steadily at the American nearly buried in drifted snow, the only part of him visible his face, white patches marking areas of frostbite on cheeks, nose and chin. The wide blue eyes and puffs of warm breath from parted lips were the only signs of life. The German jacked a round into his rifle, the action sharp and loud in the forest stillness. Chip Saunders closed his eyes.

The crack of a rifle shot woke Hanley from a sleep that had been both restless and filled with nightmares. He'd dreamt of Saunders – alone somewhere, helpless, hurt and the guilt that had driven Hanley, in his dream, out in the cold to search; that and a friendship that never should have gone stale.

"Thank God. A dream! Thank God!" he murmured to himself as he sat up in his bedroll and wiped cold sweat from his face across a jacket sleeve.

Kirby poked his head into the tent, his pinched face an open book as far as his emotions went. Kirby was scared – scared white.

"Lieutenant! Did ya hear that? It was a shot! Coulda been a Mauser – out in the woods and Lieutenant…! Sarge is gone missin'! He never slept in his bedroll!"

Hanley had a look of utter disbelief frozen onto his face and at a lack of response, Kirby stepped into the tent, raising his voice, shrilling excitedly, "Lieutenant! Sarge is gone and there's Krauts in the woods! Lieutenant? Lieutenant Hanley?"

Gil Hanley closed his eyes.

End

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Thanks for taking the time to read this piece of "Combat!" fiction. If you enjoyed it, or if you didn't, I sure would like to hear about it! Thanks for your feedback!


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